400 ESF Graduates Earn Degrees during Commencement Weekend

College Convocation celebrates students achievement; ESF graduates join SU students for Commencement ceremony5/11/2009

ESF conferred more than 400 degrees during joint Commencement exercises with Syracuse University in the Carrier Dome May 10.

ESFs graduates included 342 students who earned bachelors degrees, about 55 who earned masters degrees and eight who earned doctoral degrees.

The students joined about 3,000 of their counterparts from Syracuse University for Sundays ceremony, highlighted by an address from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who attended law school at Syracuse University in the 1960s.

Biden acknowledged that the graduates face challenges because of global economic troubles. But he pointed out the opportunity that awaits those who work to change the world.

"I am more optimistic today than I have ever been in my life because of you, because of where we are," Biden told the graduates and the thousands of friends and family members who attended the ceremony.

Earlier in the weekend, the ESF graduates were honored at the Colleges traditional convocation at the Landmark Theatre in downtown Syracuse. The guest speaker, Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, the executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, told the graduates they have a sacred responsibility to protect Earth.

"Now you are the stewards. Yours is the sacred work," Wagner said. "You are the people the world needs today."

Commencement weekend festivities also included curriculum-specific receptions for degree candidates, their guests and members of the ESF college community; a continental breakfast and recognition ceremony for advanced degree candidates; and a continental breakfast for undergraduates and their families.